Some
of the world's largest beer companies exploit
Cambodian women to sell their products, and may deny these women basic
labour and human rights, (refusing to recognise them as employees).
When AIDS, alcohol and other work place dangers prove fatal, these
'throwaway beer girls' are replaced with young recruits.
Ethicalbeer.com monitors the sales practices and health, safety and
welfare policies of major globalized beer companies doing business in
Cambodia. For additional facts, background information and action
strategies, why not consult our sister site Fair Trade Beer
or visit Beergirls.org,
a site providing a voice to the women at risk in Cambodia.

Announcing 2015 Cambodia Internships.
Join SiRCHESI staff and Prof. Ian Lubek in Siem Reap for 17-day supervised intensive research and health promotion experience. Registration is first come, first serve with a US$250 non-refundable deposit. 3 places remain for February and 4 for August 2015.APPLY for an internship NOW!
Download the 2015-brochure(pdf-file,5.5MB)

SOMO,
Centre for Research on Multinational
Corporations, is an independent, non-profit research and
network
organisation working on social, ecological and economic issues related
to sustainable development. In August 2012 they released a
report
under the title Promoting Decency? Major beer companies
earn money on the backs of Cambodian beer promoters. The
report claims how beer promotion workers selling Heineken,
Carlsberg, Bavaria and other beer in Cambodian bars and restaurants
earn too little to make a decent living. (read the report).When confronted with these findings by
the Phnom Penh Post, Danish brewer Carlsberg has now
publicly
vowed to improve working conditions of their promotional
staff. (read article)

Beer
Sellers Have Taken Action in Cambodia

Local
newspaper stories covered the
beer-sellers strike in Cambodia: from protest outside Cambrew
Headquarters in Phnom Penh to campaigns to Carlsberg and the Deputy
Governor intervention with a commitment to paying overtime. Read press coverage and see photos of the protest. On 5
Aug the Beer Sellers Union CSFWF
contacted beer sellers about the temporary ending of the strike. (read letter in rtf-format).Read Michelle Tolson's online
analysis and followup to the beer strike; a khmer-version from
the Phnom Penh Post
available for download here
(pdf).

AB-INBEV, CARLSBERG, HEINEKEN AND OTHER
INTERNATIONAL BREWERS ARE YET AGAIN IN 2008-9
BEHAVING BADLY TO WOMEN BEER SELLERS IN CAMBODIA”, written by Ian
Lubek with the help of SiRCHESI NGO and many international colleagues -
read the full report
here. (PDF-file; 0,5Mb) & as summarised pressrelease
(PDF, 0,25 Mb)

Beer Selling Industry Cambodia (BSIC), of which Heineken, Carlsberg,
Guinness, Tiger Beer, etc.,are members, hired Cambodian
research
organization CAS to evaluate progress made since Jan. 2008
(unpublished, CAS "Baseline" AUDIT), and to document adherence to 7
principles in their Code
of Conduct (Oct. 2006). The CAS study
focusses on those 7 items, without addressing some of the
additional concerns raised by SiRCHESI, SOMO (2007, 2009) and
shareholders representatives from VBDO, addressed at Heineken AGMs
since 2007. (e.g., Living wages, free (HAART) anti-retrovirals for HIV+
employees). Within the 7 questions covered, there is direct
confirmation of some SiRCHESI results-- e.g., basic Heineken salary
still averages $69.00 when SiRCHESI data shows women need $141 to feed
their families. There is some praise in the CAS (and SiRCHESI) reports
for areas of progress, such as uniforms. But the CAS also admonishes
the beer companies to do more about nightly drinking by 73% of beer
sellers who still, in 2009, reported that they sit and drink with
customers, against BSIC's Code of Conduct (SiRCHESI data
showed
more than 90%). As with SiRCHESI's recently released reports (Press release 2009,
and Backup
information 2009), CAS
highlighted many problems of employees' contracts -- transparency,
compliance with Cambodian Labour Code, and confusion about
benefits, rights and the pay structures and amounts due to them. Some
data reported in the CAS study are in sharp contradiction with
independent SiRCHESI findings, and require further discussion and
methodological analyses For example, a conservatively worded
question about workplace drinking produces a CAS finding of 0.71 litres
being drunk on the last shift by 105 BSIC saleswomen, or 3
glasses of beer or standard drinks. This amount in itself requires
comment: it is 3 times the amount suggested by the US website (0.25
litres=1 glass) for American women--30% greater in height, weight and
BMI than Khmer women-- www.enjoyheinekenresponsibly.com; at the new
Heineken Cambodia site, Cambodian women are told that 1-2 drinks are
advised as a limit (0.25- 0.50 litres), less than the BSIC sellers are
currently drinking-- in fact the SiRCHESI data for 2008 suggested that
mean alcohol drunk per shift by BSIC brands was 1.48 litres nightly or
6 standard drinks, N=103).

We thank all the supporters of our
research-guided health promotion activities in Cambodia. These services
are delivered daily in Siem Reap by “SiRCHESI”, the Siem Reap Citizens
for Health, Educational and Social Issues, which is a
non-profit Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). We
attach the illustrated SiRCHESI newsletter for January, 2011,
indicating some of the accomplishments of 2010.
What we do: In 2000, Siem Reap had among the
highest prevalence rates for HIV/AIDS in all South-East Asia;
since then, SiRCHESI has worked to : i) reduce significantly the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS among various risk groups; ii) monitor the
community's health-related social and sexual behaviours; iii) promote
workplace health and safety for women in the entertainment industry;
iv) create prevention programs for alcohol abuse; v) supply
health education through peer educators in rural outlying communities;
vi) prevent child sexual exploitation and trafficking; and, vii) create
and co-sponsor, with the hotel industry, new safe and secure career
pathways for women. For more details, please visit SiRCHESI’s four main
websites, where recent conference presentations, and research and press
reports are posted: www.angkorwatngo.com, www.fairtradebeer.com,
www.ethicalbeer.com, or www.beergirls.org .

How
much it costs: It will cost an estimated $30,000 to run all our
current programs in Cambodia during 2011 and close our balance sheet
for 2010. There are no administrative overhead costs and all donated
funds go directly to supporting our Cambodian local health staff and
outreach workers, interviewers, and hotel apprentices. All
collaborating international researchers, practitioners, students and
interns --over 90 so far-- offer their services pro bono. But
with no major grant support obtained thus far for 2011, we rely heavily
on the proceeds from the occasional sales of fair trade bracelets and
scarves, and continued academic, personal and corporate donations (with
a charitable tax-receipt for Canada and the USA).
How you can help: At this time of year, many of us sit down to make our
donations to our favorite charities. I do hope that you can include
SiRCHESI. Working in a developing country such as Cambodia
gives a new perspective on simple gift-giving, because a small (or
large) gift gets “magnified” and can actually do a great deal on the
ground.
I. $25 provides 5 workplace health and
safety interventions (with breathalyzer testing) for women workers in
dangerous situations
II. $50 permits 10 persons at
risk to attend a SiRCHESI health workshop on reproductive health,
HIV/AIDS, alcohol overuse, and workers'
rights
III. $100 provides for one of our 21
peer-educator outreach workers to reach, in 4 months, 140 rural women
and men with health promotion information about reproductive health,
HIV/AIDS, etc.
IV. $140 pays the monthly salary of 1 of
our 5 SiRCHESI staff members
V. $200 provides a complete workshop for
70 young souvenir vendors at Angkor Wat against risks of sexual
predators, HIV/AIDS and child-trafficking;
VI. $250 pays for 250 social-behavioural
monitoring interviews with high-risk persons visiting the local
HIV/AIDS testing health center
VII. $2100 pays all salaries and
expenses for SiRCHESI for one month's health promotion
activities

Please donate what you can; however, large or small an amount it will
make a difference.

Many Thanks

Ian Lubek International Advisor, Siem Reap Citizens for
Health, Educational and Social Issues (SiRCHESI; Cambodian NGO #704).
Professor, Psychology Department, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G
2W1, CANADA; Visiting Professorial Fellow, School of Public Health and
Community Medicine, University of New South Wales,
Kensington, NSW, 2052, AUSTRALIA;

April 08 International
brewers still behaving badly in Cambodia. Latest research findings suggest Heineken and
other
brands,
despite statements to media and shareholders, have not made significant
progress in 2007 to reduce high risks to their women beer-sellers in
Cambodia. Demands for
paying a "living wage", provide free HAART for HIV+ beersellers,
improve health education before employment, provide contracts
transparently, and end all workplace drinking (for starters) remain
unchanged.
Please read the recent
pressrelease (RTF- 28k)

The
struggle to have the
multinational breweries recognise their female staff
on the workfloor as regular employees has been going on since 2001 -
read about previous developments
in our archives.